Case Study: Harvard Business School

		"We have received tremendously positive feedback about the virtual Cyberposium experience, both from individuals who attended the conference and from remote viewers. Students especially appreciate Vodium's advanced search capability that allows them to tailor the experience to their interests and efficiently navigate through a considerable amount of information. For busy MBA students, being able to quickly search within a single presentation and across a number of events is extremely valuable." - John N. Maxemchuk, Cyberposium 2002 Co-Chairman

Harvard Business School

www.hbs.edu

Target Market

Education

Applications

Virtual Conference

Issues

Harvard Business School has hosted Cyberposium, the premier high-tech MBA conference, for the past seven years. Two years ago, Cyberposium organizers introduced a new component to its conference - virtual media on demand - that would capture and deliver over the Internet all keynote speeches, panel discussions and other sessions of the conference. Cyberposium organizers hoped that the conference would reach a broader audience and serve as a more valuable educational tool.

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Business Overview

Business Challenge

Vodium Solution

Results

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Business Overview
Harvard Business School hosts an annual high-technology conference that attracts over 1,500 MBA students and academics from around the world and business leaders from more than 200 companies. The conference features visionary presentations, keynote speeches, panel discussions and how-to sessions. The vision of Cyberposium is to create an innovative space for communication and learning, spanning all corners and intersections of technology and business.

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Business Challenge
As the leading high-tech MBA conference, Cyberposium attracts thousands of MBA students, academics and business leaders from around the world. Over the three-day conference, attendees have the opportunity to hear speeches and panel discussions on the latest issues in business and technology. For student and business participants alike, Cyberposium serves as a forum for sharing experiences, networking and learning.

Every year, the interest in Cyberposium extends beyond those who attend in person. Many students and other individuals would like to participate in the event, but are unable to do so because of capacity, geographic or time constraints. In addition, conference attendees often have to choose between multiple panels or workshops being held at the same time. Adding a virtual conference component with anytime, anywhere access would increase Cyberposium's value as an innovative forum for communications and learning.

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Vodium Solution
For the past three years, Vodium has transformed the three-day conference into virtual media on demand, available anytime, anywhere through the Internet. With the MediaPod™ platform, Vodium has enriched keynote speeches, panel discussions and how-to sessions with streaming video, slides, transcripts, hyperlinks, articles and reports to create a compelling virtual conference experience for both on-site and remote attendees.

Over its three-year relationship with Cyberposium, Vodium has packaged more than 100 hours of content for Harvard Business School. Given the abundance of available content, the MediaMosaic™ platform has been tremendously helpful in organizing the content in a meaningful way. Searching across Cyberposium's rich media library, and within individual multimedia events, is as easy as searching through text. With this search technology, individuals can easily customize the viewing experience to their personal interests.

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Results
Harvard Business School has taken its annual Cyberposium conference to the next level with Vodium's technology. Cyberposium's rich media library, housing three-years worth of conference events, is one of the most actively visited areas on the Cyberposium website.

Cost-Effectiveness
Cyberposium organizers have contracted with Vodium year after year because of Vodium's outsourced services model, just-in-time production and cost-effective platform. Vodium's outsourced services model offers Cyberposium organizers the ability to roll out an annual online conference virtually hassle free with no additional investments in hardware, software or technical expertise. With just-in-time production, Vodium promptly launches the media on demand presentations on Cyberposium's website soon after the on-site conference ends. Visitors can return to any part of the conference at their leisure wherever they happen to be. Vodium has provided these services to Cyperposium at a very cost-effective price point. With the MediaPod™ and MediaMosaic™ platforms, Cyberposium has been able to expand its audience almost threefold at just a fraction of the cost of the on-site conference.

Expanded Reach
By transforming the on-site conference into media on demand with the MediaPod™ and MediaMosaic™ platforms, Harvard Business School has attracted a larger audience to Cyberposium.

Generating traffic of several thousand Internet viewers, virtual Cyberposium has almost tripled the reach of the conference beyond its in-person audience. In addition, this traffic has displayed an endurance and consistency over the course of time. More than one year after the 2001 conference, virtual Cyberposium 2001 is still receiving an estimated ten viewings a day.

Superior Communications
For Cyberposium, the MediaPod™ and MediaMosaic™ platforms were used to efficiently organize an abundance of content, including three-years worth of visionary presentations, keynote speeches, panel discussions and how-to sessions. Former, current and future students, professors and industry leaders have anytime, anywhere Internet access to the important messages, themes and findings of the conference. More importantly, Vodium empowers end users by giving them full control over the viewing experience. Viewers can browse through entire presentations, fast forward and rewind video and efficiently search within single presentations and across a library of events for relevant content. Vodium's media player provides individuals with an unparalleled level of interactivity and saves them precious time in locating key information. With Vodium's technology, Harvard Cyberposium is able to expand its network, enhance the learning process and better share information with interested parties now and in the future.